In Their Own Words: What Makes a Person an Activist

This is from an interview from a former member of KelKel, a youth movement that was one of the players in the 2005 demonstrations that resulted in the ouster of Kyrgyzstan’s president, Askar Akayev. This woman is no longer a member of the movement, and has been off the social radar for about a year now. She’s now preparing to return to activism by starting her own NGO. I wanted to post the following portions of the interview because they prove a point that ought to be obvious but usually isn’t: we tend to look at people who demonstrate in protests, try to change their governments, or are just generally socially active and ask, “What makes them do that?” And then we want a single answer. There is no single answer, not even for a single person. A lot of things combine to make a person take action in their society. I think this interview shows that.

Before...I didn't really participate, but I always cared. Earlier, when I worked here in the university, I had academic responsibilities--just taught and taught. I learned a lot of theory, I went to summer school, that was all great. Then I started to rethink life. It became boring to me. I decided to...I worked on a lot of different projects in administrative positions. I would coordinate things, stuff like that. Then I understood the whole picture. The NGO sector, the international people doing things, the government doing something else, and then there are other people--unemployed people, the market. Later, I went back to teaching in 2005, and then I made friends with one NGO. They work with self-help groups. They help people in very real ways. They give them money, they teach them how to clean things up, save money, get out of poverty. I saw that and it seemed very applied to me. I liked it, because it connected me with regular Kyrgyz people, with rural people. I saw what kind of natural homes they live in. They live a very natural life, and they have a different understanding. I come here, and there's a totally different understanding. People here live like in America, and there it's a different world.

I paid attention to that, and then in 2005 there were the parliamentary elections, and that exacerbated the conflict. There were all kinds of injustices, they were repressing certain people--maybe you heard of Rosa Otumbaeva. We supported her. They refused to register her, but they let the president's daughter register. It was a reason to get involved. It pushed what was already ready. I met other people who were already involved--the NGO sector, businessmen, mostly young people who opened their own NGOs. It was interesting to me. It made me feel young again. Not like a professor, but like a young girl. It liked it. I was an actor. And I really liked that role.

Then as the first protests started, I saw how the political science I was teaching, how it all really happens. How we could be actors, feel what it was like to be persecuted, and things like that. It was interesting to me to see both theory and practice, and just be a participant. I came and taught students in the morning, and in the lecture I was talking about the political system of Kyrgyzstan, the constitution and all the branches of government, and I was always giving examples from Kyrgyzstani life: there are so many NGO's in Kyrgyzstan, some of them work, some of them don't, to what extent it is all artificial, to what extent it isn't and so on. It was really interesting to the students, and I invited them to the protests as well. A few of them, 2 or 3 of them, actually came to the protests.

Later, I gave my first speech. There was a really large meeting on February 5th 2005. Elections were in March, so it was one month before. Before that, there had been a lot of pressure from the government. They physically pushed us around. We were so angry that we gave some speeches. I was giving a speech, and I used this quote from Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world." We said that, and then I started to feel some responsibility. I said that. People saw me. And one day they would say, "You just talk and talk and talk and you don't do anything." We decided, "Ok, we'll go all the way." There were about 15 people in KelKel, all of them very active. I saw that there were a lot of very different kinds of people. Not just academic smart, there was one person who joined because his father suffered because of the regime. Some people came because they were really authentically patriotic. Another person just wanted to get experience.

Later, I started to see...even after all of this, after the revolution, I started to see where we were. I started to get interested in agriculture, and I went as a researcher to all of the southern provinces--Batken, Osh, Jalalabad. Then to Chui province. It was for the Asian Development Project. I saw how people live in the rural areas. Five som [about 12.5 cents] are really important to them. They talk about how kerosene has become expensive—really vital kinds of needs. It was essential. Information itself—a computer was important for them. It brought me into real life. After that, I wrote all kinds of reports, that was all fine, but I received a lot for myself. I learned how the Kyrgyzstani people actually live. Not just in Bishkek--everything here is warm, hot water, that's wonderful, the Internet, the whole world, we have money here. Then I worked as a researcher on the issue of education. It was the Save the Children Project. I traveled around to learn how it worked in both the North and South.

After that...I have a lot of friends who are academics--they're westerners. Talking with them, it started to become really interesting to me. They study real life, living in Batken and things like that. I understood that they were raising serious questions about identity, some kinds of paradoxical questions in our society. And all of those issues are mixed up in one another. They changed my identity. I was taught in all the theories, so I asked myself: why not use that? I can't just be somehow...in some narrow area. I need to use it. So now I'm in the process of doing that.

I also noticed poverty, migration, a lot of people—even my own sister works in Alamaty [Kazakhstan]. She was a teacher but made a very poor living. 300 som a month [less than a dollar]. They had children. She and her husband moved to Almaty. And now when I go to visit them and then return to Kyrgyzstan, I go through the border and I'm so happy that I've come to Kyrgyzstan. It's not blind patriotism. It's because I see how [Kyrgyz] people are tormented in Almaty--they don't have rights. They have to speak Kazakh in order to sell something. Some people demand a lot but don't do a lot themselves. I see that a lot and when I come back here I feel that our people are somehow simpler—I start to love my country. I pay attention to a lot of things just generally. We had a big surge in this country after the Soviet Union--it happened in all of the republics--where it was popular to get married to a American or some other Western person. It was a way of saving yourself. it was popular for some people. When I came back here, everyone said, "Oh, you're so smart. You only have one thing left to do--get married to a foreigner!" I said, "Well the most important thing is that he's a good person, no matter where he's from." I not married, but I went through those feelings in our society. But now I've decided that it really is just important what kind of person he is. It's not important where he's from. I don't think that our people are bad, we're poor, I'm tired of them, that I need to look for a good life somewhere else. Sometimes you can make a good life here, if you believe. I believe.

There are people who want to change. But I also understood that there is corruption in the NGO sector as well. It's in the government too. I saw all of that, but I didn't know where to search for change. Even change in myself. I was an un-mobilized person. Now I've gone through some course on mobilization of personality, positive thinking, and things like that. It's really helped me. And I've found like-minded people among the human right activists. They are my close friends. There is a women's center...it doesn't matter who they are, but their personalities have changed me. Now we want to make a living and do some social projects at the same time. Everyone should do what he or she is capable of doing, what their soul asks for. I am a social person. I can't just sit at home without any kind of interaction. I had a crisis moment--I stayed at home for a long time. I worked as an interpreter, and I'm still doing that. But I've felt that without participation I don't feel actualized.